AI: Sudan supplies guns to Darfur

EL GENEINA, Sudan, Aug. 24 (UPI) -- Amnesty International said the Sudanese government sent weapons to Darfur in defiance of a U.N. arms embargo, the BBC reported Friday.

The human rights group said it has photographic proof that Khartoum ignored the embargo last month and dropped weapons off in El Geneina, the capital of West Darfur, using Russian-supplied military helicopters.

In a statement, Amnesty International said the photographs reinforced evidence it had provided in May that Khartoum continues to fuel serious human rights violations in the region.

But Khalid al-Mubarak, a diplomat with the Sudanese Embassy in London, said there was "a pattern of fake photographs" presented as part of an attempt to deflect public opinion from issues such as Iraq, Gaza and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

At least 200,000 people are thought to have died in Darfur since 2003 and more than 2 million people have fled their homes since rebel groups rose up against the government's rule.

Sudan's government maintains the crisis has been exaggerated and only 9,000 have died in the fighting, the BBC said.

A U.N. Security Council resolution, passed in March 2005, prohibits the supply of arms to all parties in the conflict.

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